Yin & Young EP050 - Emi Higashiyama - Taiwanese Language, History, Identity

Yin & Young Podcast

In this episode, James and Dan chat with Emi Higashiyama about the Taiwanese language and history of the Hokkien dialect family. Emi Higashiyama is a historic preservationist, specializing in Japanese colonial architecture in Taiwan and multicultural/multilingual aspects of Taiwanese heritage issues.

Highlights:

• 2:48 Emi’s cultural background is a complex mix of Taiwanese, Japanese, and American influences.

• 11:52 Language and identity often are closely tied to each other.

• 28:00 Hokkien is present throughout Southeast Asia, with different forms and variances.

• 33:23 Language, dialect, and accent are all different from each other.

• 39:00 Discussed how different races and cultures become “trendy” and “popular” in certain countries, leading to idealization (e.g. U.S. and Japanese culture in Taiwan).

• 44:57 Brief history of linguistics in Taiwan: indigenous languages, Hokkien, Hakka, Japanese, Mandarin.

• 47:15 Taiwan is like a melting pot due to its history of back and forth migration and colonial rule by the Japanese and Chinese.

• 51:55: Emi quizzes Dan to see if he can figure out the Japanese equivalent to Taiwanese words. Taiwanese and Japanese have common words because of the Japanese colonial era in Taiwan.

• 1:13:00 Emi’s shares the etymology of the Japanese sounding, but uniquely Taiwanese phrase あたまコンクリ (atama konkuri).

• 1:25:55 Discussed the suppression of the Taiwanese language under the KMT to today’s increasing interest in learning Taiwanese.

• 1:30:20 Final thoughts: go learn languages! Don’t treat it as a “foreign” language.

Language Corner (1:41:31):

Japanese （日本語) -

• ちんぷんかんぷん - “that’s Greek to me!” or “I can’t make heads or tails of this.” From the Chinese phrase: 聽不懂看不懂 (tīng bù dǒng kàn bù dǒng) meaning “I can’t understand what you’re saying or writing.”

• ボンネット- bonnetto - car hood. From the word “bonnet."

• クラクション - kurakushon - car horn. From the word “klaxon."

Hakka （客家話) -

• ng3 ho4 (汝好) - 你好 - how are you?

• an4 zii4 se (恁仔細) - 謝謝 - thank you!

• siit bau4 mang (食飽吂）- 吃飽了嗎？- did you eat yet?

Links:

• Emi’s links:

  • Photo documentation project of Japanese colonial era architecture in Taiwan: https://www.instagram.com/japanesecolonial/

  • Curated reading list on Taiwan’s history: https://medium.com/@emihigashiyama/how-to-become-an-expert-in-taiwan-history-94a89e225ea7

  • Newsletter (exclusive access to Emi’s work in Taiwan): https://japanesecolonial.substack.com/subscribe

• Learn Taiwanese with Bite-size Taiwanese: https://bitesizetaiwanese.com/

• Learn Japanese with Japanese by Chunking: www.youtube.com/c/japanesebychunking

[Notes prepared by Emi’s intern Esther, edited/added to by James.]

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